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Steven Spielberg's 'Halo' television show was almost Peter Jackson's Halo movie.

At the Xbox One reveal, Microsoft announced a brand new Halo television series.

Produced by Steven Spielberg, the new show would build on the success of the Halo 4 mini-series, Forward Unto Dawn. But it was the failure of the Halo movie that gave birth to the new show.

The film was first announced in 2005.

Universal and Fox had partnered up to make the movie a reality. Screenwriter Alex Garland (28 Days Later) had been hired to write the script, and Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson was on board as producer, with Jackson's South African protege, Neill Blomkamp, set to direct.

Alas, not everything went according to plan. Costs ballooned on an already expensive project. At the movie's chaotic center was perhaps the greatest expense of all: Microsoft itself.

"Microsoft reportedly wanted a huge, huge piece of the film's profits — specifically, according to Variety, $10 million against 15 percent of the box office gross, in addition to a $75 million "below-the-line" budget and fast-tracked production," writes Yahoo's Leslie Gornstein. "The New York Times also reported that Microsoft wanted creative approval over director and cast; 60 first-class plane tickets for Microsoft personnel and their guests to attend the premiere; and ownership of merchandising rights."

As the film's production costs swelled heading into 2006, Universal approached Microsoft in an attempt to hammer out a better deal. Microsoft didn't bite.

"Microsoft's unwillingness to reduce their deal killed the deal," talent agency CAA's Larry Shapiro told Wired last year. "Their unwillingness to reduce their gross in the deal meant it got too top-heavy. That movie could have been 'Avatar.'"

Jackson, however, places the blame on Universal and Fox.

“It fell over due to various politics between Universal and Fox,” the Hobbit director said. “It’s almost like losing a member of the family - not that bad, but you’re emotionally committed to the movie and you’ve totally sort of gone there with your heart and soul.”

With plenty of sci-fi props and other goodies already underway by Jackson's Weta Workshop, he and Blomkamp turned their sites to District 9.

Halo, the movie, disappeared into film purgatory where it's languished ever since.

Until now.

Microsoft managed to get Steven Spielberg on board the new Halo live-action TV series which will air on Xbox Live, giving the company a huge amount of control over the project.

Whether it will succeed is an open question.

Movies based on video games (and video games based on movies) tend to have a spotty-at-best track record.

In many ways, a television series gives the story a great deal more room to spread its wings and tell a decent story than a film. We're living in the golden age of television already, with shows like Game of Thrones making a successful leap from the printed page to the LCD.

Spielberg and Microsoft aim to bring that same success to the Xbox One. With shows like Netflix's House of Cards making waves by avoiding the traditional television model, now might be the perfect time to make this series a reality.

But it's still a little disappointing that a Halo movie was never made. On the bright side, District 9 was really terrific.